HTC Desire 816 Tips and Tricks

Android 4.4 (Kit Kat)
Phone: HTC Desire 816
Factory OS: Android 4.4 (Kit Kat)

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Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Android 9 (Pie) & Android 8 (Oreo)
Or view tips for all Android versions

To share or upload a video to services like Facebook or YouTube, simply go to your Video App and long press on a video.

Then select Share via. From here you will be given options to share the video with various services.

With the recent versions of Android you can now take photos while recording video by simply pressing the screen.

This will save that particular frame to the gallery while continuing to record video.

To add a widget, simply long press on a blank part of one of your homescreens. Then select Widget. Scroll through the list of available widgets and choose one. It will be placed on your homescreen and you can move it around as you desire.

You can speed up the page load speed on your browser by disabling JavaScript.

To do this, open your Browser, then Menu – Settings – Content Settings. Scroll down and untick Enable JavaScript

Please note that this may affect the functionality of some sites.

A handy feature of Android is to quickly clear your notifications.

Simply pull down your notifications bar by swiping your finger from the top of your phone downwards.

Then when you see each individual notification, swipe your finger left or right to clear each one. You can do this with your Apps too – press and hold the home button. Then swipe left or right to close Apps.

If you are abroad and don’t want to pay high data roaming charges, then you can save Google Maps for offline viewing later. Here are two ways to do this:

The first method will depend whether your phone supports it. First, open Google Maps and navigate to a section of the map that you want available offline. Then press on the search bar and scroll right to the bottom and select Make this map area available offline. You may need to repeat this with multiple areas.

Alternatively, open Google Maps and zoom down to street level. Then scroll around area you’ll be travelling too. If you’re visiting a city for example, do this at street level and cover as much area as you think you’ve be visiting. If you’re travelling outside a city, then street level view might be too detailed, so zoom out and just cover the main roads, towns etc.

This will load all the segments into your phone’s cache. Then when have arrived at your destination and you have data turned off, you will see the areas you’ve stored on the phone’s memory.

Note: this won’t give you your GPS location because that normally needs a data connection to pinpoint your position.

If you would prefer not to be told every time an Application has been updated, open the Play Store and press the Menu icon in the top right.

Then select Settings and untick the Notifications option.

If you tend to run out of battery power quickly, then you can turn on Power saving mode.

Pull down the notification screen by swiping your finger from the top of the phone. Then select Power Saving. You may need to scroll along the available icons.

To change the settings, then pull down the notification screen again, press the Gear icon at the top. Then My device – Power saving mode to change the options.

Normally you don’t have the ability to create shortcuts to files or folders on your home screen.

There is a workaround however. Go to the Play Store and download an App called Linda File Manager.

Once installed, browse to a file or folder. Then press and hold on the file and select Create shortcut.

The shortcut will be created on your homescreen where you can hold and drag it elsewhere if you want.

To enable or disable the vibrate function when you receive text messages go to the standard Messaging App.

Press the devices menu button and then select Settings. Then scroll down to Notification settings and select Vibrate.